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The attitude to the presidential campaign of long-time independent US senator and self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders has become a major debate on the US left. Some see his decision to run as a Democrat as the major dividing line, accusing him of sidetracking the left into support for the capitalist Democratic Party. Others, while recognising Sanders' shortcomings, point to the wider role his campaign can offer in providing a more radical pole of attraction in US politics at a time when the left is weak. Below Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal makes available two views from significant sections of the US socialist left. Readers' comments are encouraged in the comments box after the articles.

July 28, 2015 -- Hurriyet Daily News, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The
government of Turkey’s refusal to provide legal guarantees for the Kurdistan Workers Party'(PKK), coupled with the construction of military fortresses,
effectively ended the ceasefire in Turkey, Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş (pictured) explained.

July 28, 2015 – Links International
Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Those who open Michael Lebowitz's new book,
The Socialist Imperative, will find something far different and refreshing
than the old apologetic Soviet manuals on the smooth workings of a planned
economy. What they will discover is a collection of writings inspired by
Lebowitz's lifetime of activism and profound solidarity with the oppressed and
exploited under capitalism and his revolutionary vision of how to build a
socialist alternative.

August 2, 2015 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The Greek Civil War was one of the major events shaping modern Greek history. The Greek Civil War from 1946-49 was fought between the Communist Party and the monarchy aided by the United States. The Civil War was one of the first major clashes of the Cold War. Communist historian Doug Enaa Greene lectured and led a discussion on the roots and course of the war for the Center for Marxist Education.

As things stand, the tide remains with him. The Labour
leadership is like a rabbit in the headlights. Large numbers of people,
young people in particular, are joining Corbyn's campaign and people are
flocking to his rallies and campaign events. Many are signing up to
Labour as registered supporters or as affiliated supporters through
their trade unions. (According to Labour List in late June the figures were
registered supporters: 9115, affiliated supporters: 3788 while the
number of full members has also grown significantly since the general
election.)

The support from inside major trade unions for Corbyn’s candidacy has been extraordinary.

July 27, 2015 -- Green Left Weekly, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- When Bolivia's President Evo Morales announced in May that his
government was allowing oil and gas drilling in national parks,
mainstream and progressive media outlets alike were quick to condemn his
supposed hypocrisy on environmental issues.

Writing for the Associated Press, Frank Bajak argued that although
Morales is known internationally for his outspoken campaigning on
climate change, at home he faces constant criticism from
conservationists “who say he puts extraction ahead of clean water and
forests”.

Bajak said this contradiction was a result of Morales’ strategy of
developing extractive industries as a means of cutting poverty,
regardless of the environmental cost.

This essay is based on The Tragedy of the Commodity: Oceans Fisheries and Aquaculture by Stefano B. Longo, Rebecca Clausen and Brett Clark, (Rutgers University Press 2015).

By Stefano B. Longo and Brett Clark

July 21, 2015 -- Climate and Capitalism, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- We live in an era of ecological crisis, which is a direct result of
human actions. Natural scientists have been debating whether the current
historical epoch should be called the Anthropocene, in order to mark
the period in which human activities became the primary driver of global
ecological change.[1]

AMYGOODMAN:
Turkish jets have reportedly launched their heaviest assault on Kurdish
militants in northern Iraq since airstrikes began last week,
effectively ending a two-year truce. Over the past week, the Turkish
military has launched combat operations on two fronts: one against the
self-proclaimed Islamic State in Syria (also called Daesh and ISIS or ISIL), another
against Kurds inside Turkey and in northern Iraq, where Kurdish groups
have been fighting against the Islamic State. This means Turkey is now
essentially bombing both sides of the same war.

July 21, 2015 -- Jacobin, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission with permission -- Greece continues to be in flux.
On July 5, the Greek people went to the polls and voted over 60% against
austerity. One week later, the Greek government agreed to a new memorandum in principle after an all-night negotiation that was described at times as “mental water-boarding”. Finally,on July 15, the first pieces of enabling legislation were passed by the Greek parliament with a large rebellion of SYRIZA members of parliament voting against the laws.

The surprising support for Jeremy Corbyn in the race for the leadership of the British Labour Party has electrified the left and is terrifiying the right. Below a number of articles from the British left explain why.

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Left Unity Newsletter, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal on July 28, 2015-- The movement in support of Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader has set politics alight – and got the media in a panic. Corbyn’s candidacy is demonstrating the mass support that exists in society for the policies he stands for,
and Left Unity has also supported since its foundation: an end to
austerity and war, a different society based on peace and equality.

This unexpected movement is an expression of the same sentiment that
is seeing a new left rise across Europe – with the difference in
expression perhaps down to Britain’s archaic electoral system.

Left Unity wishes the campaign all the best. This is an opportunity
for the Labour Party to become the party it was founded to be, defending
and extending its great achievements of the welfare state – the party
that millions want.

July 22, 2015 – Links International
Journal of Socialist Renewal -- In a summing-up speech to the Greek
parliament in the earlier hours of July 16, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said
of the punitive July 12 funding deal accepted by Greece after negotiations with
Eurozone leaders:

I
would like to put this question very honestly to each and every one of you who
is going to vote today: "The blackmail [of the Eurozone institutions] that you
mentioned—was it real or fictional?"

If
you think it was fictional, then I am open to hearing different alternatives,
and together we can work on them.

July 26, 2015 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- If a Catalan
Rip Van Winkle were to wake up today after a sleep of only six years, his
disorientation with present-day Catalonia would be as great as that of the
original Rip Van Winkle after he dozed right through the American War of
Independence.

“Am I hallucinating?”, he might ask,
struggling to find the right answer to questions like:

What is Raul Romeva, former Initiative for
Catalonia-Greens (ICV) member of the European Parliament (MEP) doing on a
ticket for the September 27 Catalan elections with Catalan premier Artur Mas,
from the ruling conservative nationalist Democratic Convergence of Catalonia
(CDC)?

Is this the same Romeva who said in 2009 that
“if it were up to Convergence, Catalonia would be a huge highway with nuclear
power stations, buildings and factories everywhere, without even a tree to
provide shade”?

July 23, 2015 -- Kafila, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- We are shocked that the European Union institutions and European leaders are imposing on the people of Greece a further program of austerity that will severely undermine the living conditions of women and men and plunge them into a deep crisis of deprivation. This hits Greek women particularly hard as they will have to provide the safety net of last resort through intensified work of taking care of their families, friends and communities.

July 2015 -- New Politics, posted at Links international Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The Partido del Pueblo Trabajador—the Party of the Working People (PPT)—is a political project of the Puerto Rican left addressed to working people in the context of the island’s deep economic crisis. It would be hard to exaggerate the gravity of Puerto Rico’s present social and economic situation, which can only be compared to the impact of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Statement by the Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM, Party of the Labouring Masses), Philippines

July 21, 2015 -- Partido Lakas ng Masa, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Under threat of economic collapse and a humanitarian catastrophe, after five months of "negotiations", which have been described as “mental water-boarding”, the Greek government has accepted the punitive funding deal that represents the interests of the big banks and European finance capital and which imposes further austerity and debt on the people of Greece.

Under the deal the VAT system will be made more regressive, pensioners will suffer further cuts, the power sector utility ADMIE will be privatised along with other public assets to service an unserviceable and illegitimate debt and collective bargaining will be eroded.

The victims were members of the
Federation of Socialist Youth Associations (SGDF) who were travelling to
help with the reconstruction of Kobane that has been in the front line
against ISIS. The following call for international solidarity was
released on July 20 by Nazmi Gur, vice co-chair of the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) in charge of foreign affairs.

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I’m writing this urgent letter to inform you regarding to the ISIL’s
bombing attack that caused death of 28 young people and nearly 100
injures in Suruç in Turkey, the closest town to Kobane. All the victims
were members of the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations, which
known as the youth organisation of ESP (Ezilenlerin Sosyalist Partisi or
Socialist Party of the Oppressed).

July 20, 2015 -- COHA, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Amid cheers of “Cuba sí, bloqueono”
(Cuba yes, embargo no), hundreds gathered on Washington, DC’s busy
16th Street to bear witness to the symbolic close to one of the more
misguided chapters of US foreign policy. Trumpeting fanfare
sounded as Cuban honour guard soldiers raised their country’s flag above
what is now Cuba’s embassy in the United States.

Cuba's foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez
Parrilla presided over the flag raising and was accompanied by a large US delegation led by assistant secretary of state Roberta
Jacobson.[1]

“It’s a new beginning, it’s a new
opportunity for the people of Cuba,” said Karla Ramos, one of the
spectators, in an interview with COHA, mirroring the sentiments of many
others there to celebrate this momentous occasion 54 years in the
making.